yama..I agree with 99% of what you say.. but f-22 is a bit different being the first 5th gen and all.

Lets keep it 4th gen and Cold War era since its an early 80s baby.. and no multination or multi-service shenanigans (so no F-22s or 35s.. and no Eurofighter)

I wanna give it the F-16s time line. YF-16 flew 1974. in service 1978. 4 years

so X-29 prototype flew 1984.. service 1988. maybe that’s too optimistic

ok lets do Gripen.. 1988, service 1996 so 8 years. but I think since its the US, they will have the will power to push through.

so lets just say 1988 to 1992! I think they could have stolen a few sales from Gripen and MiG-29s 🙂 but you probably got a point about F-16s.